Frequently asked questions

A Hero is a local travel expert who uses their on the ground knowledge and
local insights to research, recommend and assist
with things like food suggestions, local tips, lodging, offline map
navigation,
and
much more—all for an unparalleled travel experience. Your Hero will help
plan
your
trip every step of the way and will help you uncover hidden gems that you
otherwise
may not have discovered.

Yes, our Heroes either currently live or have lived a significant amount of
time in the country. Additionally, they regularly
travel all over the country, building connections not only in their city of
residence
but throughout the entire country to aid in their trip planning.

Yes, once you submit your request, we send you a follow-up form where you can share as much or as little info about your trip as you want. This will help your Hero further customize your trip. Once you receive your personalized travel guidebook, you’re welcome to request edits and updates as needed.

Our Heroes go through a rigorous interview and training process. Most of them have many years of successful experience planning trips and comprehensive knowledge of the entire country. Additionally, we show ratings and reviews for our Heroes on their profile.

We are successful only when our travelers are happy with their experience. That’s why we’re focused day in and day out on making sure that our Heroes provide the best possible trip planning service, tailored to each traveler’s unique requirements. They don’t favor certain hotels, certain tour guides, or certain destinations; the Heroes simply try to make sure that what they propose is the best fit for you.

We aim to be as transparent as possible by showing ratings and reviews for all our Heroes—good or bad. If a Hero makes a poor recommendation, you’ll see that represented in the reviews. We do not filter reviews; they are input by the customer themselves.

If you would like to have a tour guide for any portion of your trip, your Hero can certainly recommend one and arrange this for you. Our Heroes themselves don’t serve as your guides, but rather, they work with you every step of the way to create a personalized guidebook that you can take with you in an offline app. Our Heroes are all travel fanatics who love their home turf and want to share their travel secrets with you—and some happen to be tour guides outside of ViaHero! Occasionally, the Hero and traveler will arrange to meet during the trip, although this is outside of the ViaHero service.

You will communicate with your Hero via email leading up to your trip. Once you receive your personalized travel guidebook from ViaHero, you can continue to work with your Hero to ask questions and request any changes. You can also choose to stay connected with your Hero via on-the-ground phone support during your trip.

ViaHero is a new way to plan travel. ViaHero connects you with local
experts—Heroes—who will plan a completely unique trip
for you. They use your preferences and specific trip needs to create a
rich,
fully
personalized travel guidebook that runs in an app on your iOS or Android
phone—online
or offline—everywhere you go. In addition to itinerary recommendations, the
Heroes
assist with things like booking research, arranging transportation, making
restaurant
reservations, and building custom maps for offline navigation on mobile.

We have a 100% money back guarantee. None of our Heroes take commissions,
so
they are only incentivized to do what's right
for you. You can read what other travelers have said about our Heroes in
the
review
section of their profile.

On average, it takes about 1-2 weeks for a Hero to build a trip. Once you
submit your request, your Hero will send over a
preliminary outline to get your approval before building everything out in
the
app.
The sooner you agree on a preliminary outline, the sooner your Hero can
complete
the trip. If you’re in a last-minute pinch, drop us an email at
support@viahero.com
after you submit your request. We’ll let you know within the hour if we’re
able
to
meet your deadline, and we’ll connect you directly with a Hero.

Yes. You’ll have offline access to your personalized guidebook in the app,
plus
offline access to your custom maps, on iOS
or Android. This means you’ll be able to navigate to all of your Hero’s
recommendations,
which are highlighted on the map, plus any place that exists in Google
Maps—all
offline!
Pro-tip: While traveling, turn off your data but make sure the GPS on your
mobile
device is turned on to be able to see your blue location dot on the map.
Since
your
maps are all pre-loaded onto the app, you won't need any wifi or data to
navigate.

For anything that does not require a credit card, the Hero will arrange and
reserve a booking for you. Typically this involves
drivers, tour guides, dinner reservations and other non-credit card
bookings.
For
anything that requires a credit card upfront, the Hero provides direct
links to
book—all
you have to do is enter your credit card information to complete the
booking.

No problem. You can email your Hero and they'll continue to tweak your plan
until you have exactly what you want. Still don't
like it? Just let us know and we'll give you 100% of your money back,
guaranteed!